Review of Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Phuket in Economy

Introduction

Given that me and my wife didn't really fancy meeting my wife's parents at her hometown as there was not a lot to do, we invited them to visit Phuket for a few days together with us as they always said they wanted to have some southern Thai food in their life and never managed to travel down south. Neither me nor my wife are particularly fan of Phuket, yet we decided to go there as we were moving to Koh Yao Yai a few days later to finalize our trip. With plenty of choices to fly from Bangkok to Phuket, I bought my wife's parents a ticket from Ubon Ratchathani via Bangkok to Phuket and booked us for about 40 EUR per person on the same flight from Bangkok to Phuket with seats adjacent to theirs. We opted to choose THAI as they gave us the best timings for both to and from Phuket for them, while other airlines were very similar in pricing.

Start of the trip.

Given the huge delay of our previous sector from Tokyo to Bangkok with Air Japan, we were a bit sceptical whether we should have gone to the hotel or not, but as we already paid for it, we decided to go there and had some refreshing shower and a much-needed three hour power nap before we were back on the road and back at Suvarnabhumi for our flight to Phuket.

The hotel shuttle dropped us in front of the departure hall and the terminal was as usual quite busy with a lot of movement of passengers and other flights.

We found our way to the D-Pier, which we used for our flight to Phuket to grab our boarding card and to drop our luggage.

The self check-in counter itself is quite slow to use, but is self explanatory. Nowadays it asks whether you want to sign up for some kind of program to use facial recognizion to gain access to your flight. I declined as I'm not a huge fan of it nor was it necessary as most of the systems are not being used by any airlines for what I've seen.

Given that THAI has very relaxed luggage regulation and has a limit of 25 KG, it was kind of a relief to see that my luggage made it to a total of 24.9 KG….. I'm not entirely sure how my luggage gained those kilograms over time, but I fear it has to do something with my wife as it was only 18 KG the day I started.

Once all the formalities are completed regarding our luggage, we went straight for airside. While the international terminal of Suvarnabhumi does have central security, the domestic does not and screening is more or less divided into piers and will be happening at a later stage prior to getting to your gate, so be sure to not go to early to your gate as there will be no access to any eateries other than some vending machine and a snack kiosk.

Given that the terminal was quite hectic and we were waiting for my wife's family to enter the terminal as their flight from Ubon Ratchathani arrived like 10 to 15 minutes ago, I found someone of a quiet section to escape the noise.

The Coral Domestic Lounge

As both me and my wife have access to priority pass, we decided to visit the Coral Domestic Lounge, which tends to be my go to when I'm flying domestic from Suvarnabhumi and we both invited one of my wife's family member to join us. 

Coral Lounge isn't overly large, though tends to be one of the better ones for domestic that is quite often not that busy compared to the others. Though I noticed that a lot of staff has been replaced by Filipino's, which I suspect, has mainly to do with salaries.

The lounge however had just a very few people, which meant that the manager decided to say hello to us and provide us with a welcome drink.

Unfortunately I did not take a lot of photos as my wife pulled me back to my seat to continue our conversation once I picked up some food.

While domestic lounges are not really famous for their buffets in my opinion, it's nice to see that the lounge does offer somewhat of a select few options for warm food. It does also offer some desserts or pastries in case you do not fancy something warm in the morning.

Beverages were on the left of the food and if one wanted some alcoholic beverages, they do have a staffed bar where you can order cocktails, beers or some other liquors, though wine is not available.

Heading to our gate

About an hour later we decided to leave the lounge and stroll to our gate as our flight was supposed to start boarding and we still needed to clear security, which usually is not really a big deal here, though can be very chaotic.

The bird that is going to bring us over to Phuket.

The job of bringing us to Phuket will be in the hands of HS-TXO. This 10.5 year old Airbus A320 will bring us to our destination and is named after the city Nakhon Ratchasima (or Korat). It was newly delivered to Thai Smile in June 2014 before being integrated into THAI on the first month of this year (2024). The cabin is similar to what Thai Smile used to be, so expect some kind of EURO J class.

If I remember correctly, THAI does not call it business class anymore as it had quite a backlash of frequent flyers who were very disappointed with the product they offered.

Boarding was already in progress and we were one of the last to join the line.

Flight

Once on board, we were hastily greeted by one of the flight attendants without a smile and made my way to the aft of the cabin to seat 55C. Legroom was not an issue for me being 1.83m (6'') tall, however is not very generous in my opinion as THAI can also use those A320s on longer routes to Hong Kong or several destinations in India, though it was clean.

Given that I did not have a window seat and my wife seated in the row opposite of me, I did not take a lot of photos of the plane, but pushback was about eight minutes past our scheduled time and it took about 15 minutes or so to reach our runway for our departure to Phuket. 

An impression of the cabin while one of the flight attendants is already busy by serving us our complimentary snack.

About 25 minutes into the flight, I received this goodie bag.

The goodie bag of course contains your snack, which for today's flight was a wet wipe, a bottle of water and a ''Pandan Coconut Custard Bun''.

I'm not entirely sure one could call it a bun like the prints say as it did feel more like a cake to me, though I was quite surprised with it's taste as I devoured it :).

The literature department wasn't overly exciting either as it contained only of a safety card with a revision that is dated back to June 2023 and a sick bag.

When the couple next to me asked whether they could exit as they had to go to the lavatories (to join the mile high club?), I decided to take a quick shot from the window.

About ten minutes past receiving the snack bag, flight attendants came by to ask whether we would like a cup of tea or coffee. I asked for a cup of coffee, which was given to me right away and somehow I felt like they were rushing through the cabin as the flight attendant never asked whether I'd like to have some milk or sugar nor did she give me a chance to ask.

Well given that I do not have a window in the aisle, I decided to have a starring contest with one of the individual air vents above you, which I obviously lost when the flight attendants came by to clean up. 

While the flight was originally scheduled to be less than an hour and 30 minutes, the flight took actually about 20 minutes longer than planned for some odd reason as we were not in a holding pattern nor could it be unfavourable winds as other flights were just fine according to our schedule.

Landing was about 26 minutes past our scheduled arrival time and it took about 5 minutes for us to be attached to one of the jetbridges. Disembarkation followed soon after and went quite speedy unlike the boarding.

We found our way to the luggage and about 10 minutes later luggage was starting to come out, however all luggages were cramped together and once everything was offloaded, the ground crew decided to cut power to the belt forcing people who were waiting on the other side to clog all together to grab their bag.

While I normally like to fly with THAI, I have to admit that this flight wasn't particularly pleasurable for multiple reasons and THAI definitely could have done a better job on several occassions.

With all that sorted, I said my hello to Sixt in Phuket Airport to grab my rental car for the following day on a very very busy day as it took us about two hours to reach our hotel, which normally is just an hour.

So thanks for stopping by and happy new year!